The pitta that didn't make it

February 2019

Let's get right to it. Today, I woke up feeling pretty frustrated and disappointed because of one of the same old issues that continues to plague and decimate the bird life across Australia. Yep, you guessed it. I'm talking about cats. What have they done now? Well ok, time for some context.

Those that read the most recent Rare Bird Alert, would have noted that a Fairy Pitta was found in Broome on the 7th of February. Fairy Pitta, belongs to the Pittidae family, and is arguable one of the most beautiful and most sought-after bird families in the world (seriously, read the book "The Jewel Hunter" by Chris Gooddie if you don't believe me). More than that, thanks to the various anthropogenic disruptions across east Asia (included deforestation and trapping for the ever-growing illegal cage-bird trade), this species is now rapidly declining, so much so it was recently listed on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. It is now classified as vulernable on the IUCN Red Lit of Threatened Species.

So when are bird that rare in its homeland turns up in somewhere as foreign as Australia, us birders and twitchers get awfully excited. They read like once-in-a-lifetime styled opportunities to see this species in your home country. Fairy Pitta is so rare in Australia there are in fact only 2x previous records (1 bird in a garden in Derby (WA) and another bird filmed by a park ranger on Christmas Island in November 2011).

Here's a video of a Fairy Pitta from Thailand, courtesy of the YouTube channel GuideA007

Back to Australia. The Fairy Pitta in Broome was located after it flew into a window at the Matso Broome Brewery (of all places right?), where the staff were considerate enough to put the dazed bird into a box. Thankfully, it shortly recovered and began jumping around and singing totally right as rain, so the staff released it back into the garden. Local birders went to follow up the report and relocated the bird on the following day (Friday 8th) and then again on the Saturday morning. Looking like the bird was here to stay, a small group of dedicated twitchers purchased airfares and hopped aboard a plane heading straight to Broome. And who can blame them? Honestly, I was planning to do the same (but would have stopped off in Perth to collect the Collared Pratincole first!).

Our trusted twitchers arrived on the scene, feeling pretty good about finding this rarity, particularly given that it had been seen earlier that morning! Well, to put it simply. They found the Fairy Pitta! Take a look for yourselves (images courtesy of Damian Baxter)

Dead. The Fairy Pitta was dead. Not only dead, the thing was mauled, killed and damaged. It didn't get sick. It didn't fly into another window. It hadn't been struck by lighting. It had been killed, and what's more likely, killed by a feral cat.

Now before the cat lovers raise their arms up into the air, miss the point entirely and return to living with their heads in the very sand box their pets regularly defecate into, let's just look at the facts as we have them. The Fairy Pitta (being a pitta), is a skulking, hunkering-down, out-of-sights ground bird, it makes itself prey for only a handful of predatory species. This rules out a lot of the local birds of prey such as obvious candidate Brown Goshawk. Additionally, if the pitta had been hit by a goshawk (or even something like a monitor), it would have carried off the bird to eat!

Those whom have travelled, live or spent some time in Broome will also be aware that it has one of the worst feral cat (and dog for that matter) epidemics in the country. But simply googling 'feral cats' and 'broome' a number of articles flashed up outline this very problem.

Finally, the images have already been sent off to a number of wildlife experts, all of them unanimously weighing in that it looks like a quintessential cat attack, due to the puncturing on the back of the neck (a typical predatory cat attack) and around the throat. The Fairy Pitta has been collected and will be sent off to the WA Museum which will (I'm almost 100% positive) confirm this as a cat-induced death.

Damian Baxter, showing us exactly how the professionals go birding

The recently deceased Fairy Pitta from when it was taken into care

In summary, Australia's latest Fairy Pitta did not make it and unfortunately will not make back to its homeland. A real blow for this species, and by associating, for the twitching community across Australia. Whilst researching this species, I learned that it's one of the most unique species of Pitta in the world, as it is the only species that breeds in Northeast Asia!

So make of this write up as you will. Is James bias simply because he didn't get to see this bird before it disappeared. Does James just hate cats? Did James just want an excuse to go birding at the Matso Broome Brewery?

Something interesting out of all this was the discovery that there had in fact been a second Fairy Pitta at Matso. This bird however had found another bird that flew into a fan on the 10th of December (2018), which he then buried in the garden. Which means that was actually the third record for Australia, and our current bird was the fourth.

Final note. For the cat owners out there. It's long past time that you all as a community, worked to become much more responsible about your pets. They should be restricted to your properties, better yet, only allowed outside in purpose built cat runs. Furthermore, they should all be neutered (obviously!). If we can't even manage that, what hope does this country with the worst rate of mammal extinction in the world have for the rapidly growing feral cat population and protection of our native species (let alone the visiting pittas)?

James Mustafa is a birder, wildlife enthusiast and self-confessed twitcher from Melbourne, Australia. A musician and composer by trade, he has been birding, exploring nature and appreciate wildlife for all his life. Since taking up a real fascination with birds, he has soared with tropicbirds in the Indian Ocean, played with hummingbirds in North America, chased owls in Asia, and twitched everything from gulls to leaf warblers across Australia.